Tennessee

American

[ten-uh-see] / ˌtɛn əˈsi /

noun

a state in the southeastern United States. 42,246 sq. mi. (109,415 sq. km). Nashville. TN (for use with zip code), Tenn.
a river flowing from eastern Tennessee through northern Alabama, western Tennessee, and southwestern Kentucky into the Ohio near Paducah. 652 miles (1,050 km) long.

Tennessee British

/ ˌtɛnɪˈsiː /

noun

Abbreviation: Tenn, TN. a state of the E central US: consists of a plain in the west, rising to the Appalachians and the Cumberland Plateau in the east. Capital: Nashville. Pop: 5 841 748 (2003 est). Area: 109 412 sq km (42 244 sq miles)
a river in the E central US, flowing southwest from E Tennessee into N Alabama, then west and north to the Ohio River at Paducah: the longest tributary of the Ohio; includes a series of dams and reservoirs under the Tennessee Valley Authority. Length: 1049 km (652 miles)

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Tennessee Cultural

State in the south-central United States bordered by Kentucky and Virginia to the north; North Carolina to the east; Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi to the south; and Arkansas and Missouri to the west. Its capital is Nashville, and its largest city is Memphis.

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One of the Confederate states during the Civil War.

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

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Tennessee

The Bengals needed overtime to beat one-win Tennessee, but Joe Burrow played great.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 5, 2026

Tesla operates a supercomputing cluster in Texas, though SpaceX’s data centers are based in Mississippi and Tennessee.

From MarketWatch ● Nov. 5, 2026

One of those state laws, in Tennessee, is set to take effect in mid-2028, after the CVS breakup is scheduled to occur.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 5, 2026

US authorities have recaptured a convicted murderer who escaped a Tennessee prison more than a week ago.

From BBC ● Nov. 4, 2026

The homelands of the Cherokee Nation covered substantial parts of what is now Georgia, Tennessee, and the Carolinas.

From "An Indigenous People’s History of the United States" by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023